Thursday, February 18, 2016

Well hello there!I love to try new things - to push past what I know (and know how to do) and to forage into unknown territory. Inevitably, in doing so, I often discover happy accidents... as well as a fair share of unforeseen problems. When I set the goal to make 500 Calendar Girls for 2016, I knew it would be a challenge. I drastically underestimated that challenge. The holidays are a busy time of year in general, but the 2015 holidays hit me like a ton of bricks being launched from trebuchets in every direction. I have tried to be a little off-the-radar for a bit because all signs were definitely pointing towards me needing to slow down and take a break for my own health and sanity. That helped tremendously, so now I think we can pick up the pace a little.So, long story short - I still have 2016 Calendar Girls! A LOT of 2016 Calendar girls. And they are finally ready to be shared with you lovely folks!I'm going to be releasing them again in batches - about 25-30 calendars per batch over the course of a few days. The listings will be posted in my shop right here, and the release schedule will be as follows:

February Calendar Girl Release Schedule

Sunday, February 21st at 9pm PSTMonday, February 22nd at 10am PST

Tuesday, February 23rd at 12pm PST

Wednesday, February 24th at 2pm PST

Thursday, February 25th at 5pm PST

For those of you who may be new to this site or to buying calendars, I recommend taking a look at this post for some troubleshooting tips! The price for this new batch of calendars will be reduced to $75 each, and all girls include the full deck of 2016 calendar pages.

I will also be doing a giveaway on Instagram! I'll put details up over there soon:)

Thank you all so very much for your patience - here's to 2016 being the best year yet!

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The queen.In order to stay inspired as an artist, I find that it is best for me to constantly have multiple ideas and projects brewing. Every once in a while, though, I will have one project that I am just dying to work on. It brews and builds and eventually becomes an all consuming monster that absolutely has to get out or it will wreck me.

Enter this familiar face/hairdo/dress combo.Ever since I worked on the Maleficent piece for the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray(which I realize I've never posted about….more on that later) I've been intrigued by creating fully sculptural paper pieces. They are so much more labor intensive and harder to plan than my usual relief fare, but part of what I find inspiring about creating any artwork is what I don't know...and subsequently learn in the process. And these pieces involve lots of learning. And failing. And learning some more. Sometimes (aka a lot of times) tears.

I learned A LOT while working on this piece, and I considered starting over from scratch quite often. In fact, as I went to photograph her to get final approval from Disney, I very nearly scrapped her altogether. It took my much more sane, balanced husband saying "What?! What are you talking about?!" to draw me back from the edge. I suppose the closer a project is to you, the harder it is to see clearly with objective eyes. Elsa means a lot to me - I wanted to be able to do her justice.

This piece is titled "One with the Wind and Sky", and it is my love note to her. It is my love note to Frozen - to the people who let me be a part of this wonderful film and for the two years that I was allowed to help craft it.To Idina for lending her perfect voice, and for all of it for making pretty much all of my dreams come true. Geeze - we are in danger of having more Frozen gush sessions than mermaid posts around here.

This post is several weeks late - I had initially intended on posting her the day that she would debut at the Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disneyland, but unfortunately a stomach flu put a wrench in all of my grand-master plans. I'm on the mend, though, and thought that she would be worth posting anyway. Thank you to everyone who has already made the trip to see her in Disneyland, and for all of your kind words of support. Happy Holidays to all!

Friday, December 11, 2015

What a week.First and foremost - I'm so sorry to anyone I missed at the Wonderground Gallery. A stomach flu hit me last Friday morning, so I spent 24 of the unhappiest hours of my life in a hotel room at the happiest-place-on-earth. Thankfully, I'm on the mend, but I'm so sad to have missed the event! I've got a second Wonderground post ready to go, so that those of you who weren't able to come to Anaheim can get a closer look at my second piece for the show - that should be up tomorrow…But first! I had hoped to release this schedule earlier in the week, but sickness put a wrench in those plans. Sickness also halted production a bit, so I wanted to make sure that I would be able to hit this release schedule before putting it out there for all of you. So here goes!

I'm hoping that there will be about 50 girls released in each batch, and all orders placed up to and including Wednesday, December 16th will ship before Christmas. (Please note: this is the cut-off date for all orders before Christmas.)

Somewhat like last year, I have received some comments and concerns about the purchasing process, so I wanted to spell out a few Etsy troubleshooting tips for making the whole experience go a little more smoothly:

Check out quickly - Etsy does not hold items for you in your cart. I had many people complaining that they had calendars in their cart that were removed before they could check out. If you know that you would like to purchase a calendar, pick one and check out as quickly as possible to avoid losing out to another customer.

One at a time, please. I can't set a limit on the number of calendars that an individual customer can purchase through Etsy, but if I could I would request that you purchase one at a time. This helps to make sure that the checkout process goes more smoothly, and also allows for more customers to get calendars!

Try a few times. I'm trying to spread out the release schedule over a few dates and times to allow more people all over the world to have access to the calendars when the arrive in the shop. If you can't get a girl in the first round, please try again at one of the later times.

Refill Clarity! A new issue that customers seem to be running into this year is confusion about the Wardrobe Refill Packs, so I wanted to take a second to clarify exactly what they are. The refill packs are intended to replace previous-years' pages for customers who already own a Calendar Girl. Every new Calendar Girl comes with her own set of pages, so if you are looking to buy a full calendar there is no need to purchase a refill pack. Conversely, buying refill packs will not reserve full calendars. Basically, if you don't already own a calendar from a previous year, I don't recommend buying a refill pack (unless you are just looking to have a pretty set of dresses in your life :)

So that's it! Again, I want to sincerely thank you all for your patience and continued support. I'm so grateful to be able to create the things that make me happy and just hope that they can make others happy as well!.

Thursday, December 03, 2015

As I mentioned in the last post, this coming Saturday (December 5th) the Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disneyland will be hosting all six of the Lovely girls for an artwork release and book signing! It will be the first time in a long time that Lisa, Lorelay, Helen, Vicky, Claire, and I will all be together, and we are all very excited!I was asked to create some new artwork to be released at the event, and while I had quite a few initial ideas, top priority went to this young lady. Have I mentioned that I'm a fan? No? Huh. Well, I am. It may be to the point of unhealthy obsession, but I try to channel that energy in the most productive ways possible. Thus, very large paper-cut artworks are born.This piece is titled What's a Fire?, and stands at about 36 x 16 inches, making it one of the larges pieces I have worked on in some time. I fear that I may sound like a broken record for those of you who have been around for a while, but Part of Your World was my introduction to pure magic, and remains the standard that I compare all movie moments to. I could go on and on about why it is just perfection, but the bottom line is that it makes me feel. And I love that.The original piece will make its debut on Saturday at 11am, and I believe that prints and possibly a few other items featuring the artwork will be produced through the gallery as well. I'm sure that the six of us will be taking pictures the day of, so stay tuned on instagram and twitter (and who knows, maybe even Periscope?) for real-time updates.

And as you may be able to tell from the title of this post, this is just Part 1 of what I have in store for Wonderground. I'm really excited about Part 2 , and am hoping to share with you tomorrow:) Have a lovely evening everyone!

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Well hello there.I'm briefly coming up for air after a few months that felt like one mad-dash to several simultaneous finish lines. CTN-X is officially over and did not disappoint (thank you to all who came out and said hello and gave me so many hugs!), and next weekend all of the Lovely girls are getting together at Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disneyland for a special artwork release and book signing! I managed to just barely finish a couple of new pieces for that event - more to come on that shortly!And then lastly but not least(ly), we have the girls.

I have to be honest - I've been completely overwhelmed with the response to these calendars. I am so grateful to everyone who has given me such wonderful feedback, and so I'm really trying to make sure that everyone who wants one can get one. We upped the Calendar Girl edition number this year to 500 (which is why I need to make this post brief - gotta get back to work!) and most of them will be going online in batches through the month of December. I will post a solid release schedule sometime next week, but I wanted to let everyone know that the first batch will go up in the Etsy shop on Monday, November 30th at 10am PST.

To recap for anyone who is unfamiliar, the Calendar Girls were an experimental project that David and I started two years ago, and we got such great feedback that we decided to continue with them as a yearly project. The concept is simple: A monthly desk calendar that is basically a paper doll. The stand is made from maple plywood in the form of a girl, and every new month is a page with a different outfit. While all of the pages are the same for each calendar, each stand/girl is hand stained, painted, and completely unique. The class of 2015 will contain 500 girls, all hand numbered, signed, and ready to go!

And for those of you who managed to snag one of the last two editions of the girls, we will be selling the new 2016 Wardrobe Refill Pack in the shop! These refills are specifically for those of you who have purchased the calendars in the past - Each of the new 2016 girls come with their own set of dresses included. I will also be putting the wardrobe packs up in the shop on Monday morning.

Thank you again to all of you who take the time to travel over to this space when posts are so few and far between. I could not be more grateful for the support that I receive from all of you, and as a little thanks, I'm going to be putting a sale on in the shop from now through Monday. Everything in the shop will be 10% off - just use the coupon code GRATEFUL at checkout. And as always, keep an eye on twitter and instagram for the most up-to-date info!

Friday, August 28, 2015

The last days of summer might be one of my favorite times of the year. The weather is still wonderful and everyone is gearing up for the excitement of a new school year. There is a simultaneous calm and energy in the air. For me, personally, all of the busy-ness of San Diego Comic Con and D23 are over, and there are still a few short months until the crazy that is The Holidays sets in. I was born during these dog days, got married on one of these dog days, and generally just feel best right about now.I'm getting ready to head back to the East Coast to celebrate my little sister's wedding (!) and for a short but much-needed vacation with my guy. It seems like I'm always teasing things on my plate, but goodness - fully loaded, multiple spinning plates is what is happening over here. Some examples include this,this, and maybe most notably this (daily sneak peeks happen on Instagram, folks!) so I promise I'm not leading you all on.So while I don't have much new work to share, I wanted to pass along some of my late-summer joy. From now through Sunday enjoy 10% off of all items in my etsy shop including the new items from SDCC that have just been listed! Just use the code SUMMERSALE at checkout. Enjoy these last long days, friends! I will check back in soon!

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Hello there!This one will be short and sweet: we are in the throws of getting everything ready to head down to San Diego, but I wanted to give a little update on what we will have and where we will be this year!

(a few of the new (and returning) items that I will be bringing with me!)This year I have a new location at booth #4405! We will have the usual prints and books, with a few new items and originals. I'm especially excited about the little cosmetic bags that just came in!

Anyhow, I should be posting frequently on twitter and instagram over the week(end), so follow along there if you like! And I hope to see some of you in person! Have a lovely week!

Monday, June 01, 2015

Hello.I woke up this morning and found myself nearly at the halfway mark of 2015, the past 6 months being a bit of a blur, and felt overwhelmingly guilty for my complete negligence of this space. One of my New Year's resolutions for 2014 was to keep up, and when 2015 hit, I kind of unwittingly ran for the non-blogging hills.As I was thinking about this blog, though, I realized that 2015 is somewhat of a landmark for this space - 10 years. This little space has been operating for a decade! My goodness how time flies. 2015 also marks 5 years for me at Disney, and that seems completely unthinkable. It feels like just yesterday I was writing about being accepted as a trainee, and I still feel brand new every day when I walk into work!The past 10 years have been formative and transformative for me, and if you troll through these archives, you can certainly see why I say that. I am so grateful to have had this space for so long, and for everyone who has shown support for it along the way. Thank you all.Part of the reason why I haven't posted in a while is that there is presently a lot of new, fun work on my plate, but not much that I can share just yet. There is quite a bit coming, and lots of other things that I haven't been organized enough to post about. I'm working on remedying that, so hopefully I will be posting lots of new work SOON.So today I would mainly like to pose a question to anyone out there who is still following this space - what would you prefer to see here in the future? The addition of new social media outlets to my wheelhouse (twitter, instagram, etc…) have been fantastic, but in some ways have made it more difficult to come up with blog-specific content. I have really gravitated toward instagram and all of its instant visual goodness, but I don't find it to be the best format for writing lengthy, informative posts. That is better suited here, right? Am I crazy? Does anyone actually want informative posts?I would love to hear your thoughts! Please leave comments and let me know what you would like to see, and I will do my best to keep up!In the meantime, though, you can definitely keep up with my daily shenanigans on twitter and Instagram - follow @britsketch for both!Have a great week, everybody!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Boy, holidays sure can be... challenging.I must apologize to everyone who has been patiently waiting for updates on the Calendar Girls. I had every intention of posting a full release schedule in the first week of December, but had to delay that due to a few unforeseen circumstances. I'm happy to announce that the girls are ready to go now, and will be released as follows:

There will be about 20 girls released in each batch, and all orders placed up to and including Friday, December 19th will ship before Christmas. (Please note: this is the cut off date for all orders before Christmas.)

I have received a lot of comments and concerns regarding the last batch that was released and I tried to read through all of them. Mostly, it seems that people were frustrated with the Etsy checkout process. I definitely hear you and am looking into alternative options for next year's round of calendars, but unfortunately there is not enough time to set up a different purchasing method for this year's girls. Here are a few Etsy troubleshooting tips:

Check out quickly - Etsy apparently does not hold items for you in your cart. I had many people complaining that they had calendars in their cart that were removed before they could check out. If you know that you would like to purchase a calendar, pick one and check out as quickly as possible to avoid losing out to another customer.

One at a time, please. I can't set a limit on the number of calendars that an individual customer can purchase through Etsy, but if I could I would request that you purchase one at a time. This helps to make sure that the checkout process goes more smoothly, and also allows for more customers to get calendars!

Try a few times. I'm trying to spread out the release schedule over a few dates and times to allow more people all over the world to have access to the calendars when the arrive in the shop. If you can't get a girl in the first round, please try again at one of the later times.

Hopefully I will have exactly the right amount of calendars for everyone who wants one and it will be Happy Holidays for all! Finally, I want to sincerely thank you all again for your patience and continued support. I appreciate all of your encouragement and kind words as I try to navigate these unfamiliar "selling limited edition things" waters. I'm learning and I will certainly do my best to get better, and your feedback is always welcome!Have a wonderful week, and cheers to a magical Holiday Season!

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Well, the insanity that is the week of CTN-X is officially over. It was an overwhelming week of fun, and I want to thank everyone who came out to say hello - you make it a blast every year!

Now that the craziness has subsided a bit, I wanted to do a little update on this year's Calendar Girls! I've been getting some questions on when and where they will be for sale, so I will do my best to address those questions here!

First off, for those of you who may be new to this blog, the Calendar Girls were an experimental project that David and I started last year, and we got such great feedback that we decided to take it even further this year. The concept is simple: A monthly desk calendar that is basically a paper doll. The stand is made from maple plywood in the form of a girl, and every new month is a page with a different outfit. While all of the pages are the same for each calendar, each stand/girl is hand stained, painted, and completely unique.

Last year we decided to start with an edition of 100, and those went so quickly that this year we have opened the edition up to 200 girls. The class of 2015, if you will. They are all hand numbered, signed, and ready to go!

Also new this year is the refill pack, which we have cheekily titled The Wardrobe. These refill packs are for all of you fantastic folks who picked up calendars last year and would like to give your girls an update for this year.

The 2015 set of girls debuted at CTN-X over the weekend, and received a great response. There are still plenty left over, though, so I would love to start making them available to everyone via the magic of the internet! Over the course of the next few weeks (leading up to Christmas) I will be releasing batches of Calendar Girls (between 10 and 30 at a time) in my shop until I run out. I will be releasing the first batch this Friday, November 28th at 10am PST. So set your calendars and your clocks! I will also be listing the refill packs at the same time, so you should have plenty of time to prep your girls for the New Year! There will be future updates on the next rounds of listings, so make sure you are following here, on twitter, and on Instagram to stay up-to-date!Last but not least, I want to give thanks to all of you who support my posts here, and for all of your awesomeness. I am able to do what I love to do because of the encouragement that I receive from all of you, and for that I could not be more grateful. In honor of the holidays and good things in general, we are going to run a holiday sale in the shop through Sunday. Everything in the shop will be 10% off - just use the coupon code GIVETHANKS at checkout. Have a happy and safe holiday everyone!